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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday, December 16, 2009 · 6 OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 --Open 9-5 weekdays, 5-7 for calls only Wed. to Friday, Closed weekends Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: NEIL OLIVER Vice ­ President and Group Publisher of Metroland West The Oakville Beaver is a division of Media Group Ltd. DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager Let's get it right We can understand why people would be hesitant to hand over $200 million of Oakville taxpayers' money to help pay for a new hospital. After all, it's a lot of money and commits the town to a long-term debt of 30 years. Admittedly, the taxpayers have been burned recently by the Ontario government squandering a billion dollars of taxpayers' dollars on the eHealth scandal. Not to mention the cost overruns at the new Brampton Civic Hospital, which saw construction costs nearly double from $350 million to $650 million. In addition, many families are still recovering from the recession and a struggling economy. Town staff has countered with an offer of $140 million, which they say is more realistic. So, it's natural to wonder whether the request for $200 million by Halton Healthcare Services (HHS) is justifiable and affordable. However, let's not lose sight of the goal -- to build a hospital that will meet the needs of the community for now and in the future. While it's tempting to cut corners in order to save money, let's remember the Town's contribution represents the foundation from which the hospital will build on for years to come. The bulk of the $200 million requested by HHS is not going to construction costs (that figure is 10 per cent of the construction costs $20), but for revenue generating projects (parking lot) and new equipment. Lowballing the request with $140 million could result in a loss of programs and reduction in bed capacity -- 457 beds when it opens, with a future capacity of 602 beds. The current Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH) facility is woefully inadequate. That's not the fault of the people working there, but the facility itself. Over the years, millions of taxpayers dollars have been funnelled into that facility as Band-Aid solutions to meet the needs of a growing population. The end result is the jury-rigged hospital we have today. Let's not make that same mistake. Let's not condemn our children and our children's children to an inadequate health care facility. We have a chance to get this right from the beginning and design a hospital that will meet the needs of our community for years to come. In our lifetime, we will not likely get another chance to fund and build a local hospital from the ground up. Let's do it right. Let's not blow it. The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone 416-340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Letter to the editor Election signs raise candidate's public profile Re: Ban election signs, too, Oakville Beaver, Dec. 6 Like former mayor Ann Mulvale, I was pleased to see Mayor Burton and Town Council considering the elimination of campaign donations from corporations and unions. I am less certain of the wisdom of her desire that election signs on public property also be banned. Her argument that running for office is expensive is an accurate one. Yet the key barrier to success in running for office is name recognition. Election signs are one of the easiest ways to raise name recognition, and to drive potential voters to visit websites or to telephone candidates to understand their positions, and perhaps even to support them with a sign on private property. If making public office accessible to new candidates is the objective, banning election signs should be considered with care, even though they are one of the most expensive elements of a campaign. It is true that election signs are very unsightly. It takes a lot of volunteer work to put them up and keep them standing, but the fact that they are often knocked down or damaged is evidence that opponents believe they work. Democracy is a messy business, but it has to be so to be fair. Certainly signs contribute to the awareness that an election is imminent. Their removal might well affect the already abysmal voter turnout for municipal elections. Contrary to the intuitive thought that they are a cost barrier to new entrants, the argument might even be made that the chief beneficiaries of the elimination of election signs from public property would be politicians whose names are already well-known. CHRIS STOATE Letters to the editor The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via email to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. Canada's climate change plan bottoms out On Monday, Germanwatch's Climate Change Performance Index ranked Canada as the country with the second worst climate policy in the developed world; second only to a country that outright denies the science of climate change. As a young Canadian fighting to improve the negotiating platform of the Canadian government at the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, I didn't really think things could get worse. But it did. Monday night's leaked proposal for a secret domestic emissions reduction plan has revealed the extent to which Canada's already weak positions are above anything we would willingly achieve domestically. Our woefully inadequate three per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 target is far beyond what we would actually reach under such a plan, where targets for the oil and gas industry are weakened threefold and emissions increase until 2020. The overall result: a 10 per cent reduction in the intensity of our oil and gas emissions; instead of growing 165 per cent they will grow 155 per cent by 2020. We are pushing the envelope of climate inaction and delay; setting new standards of despicable and dishonest. Developing countries are not only facing the crippling effects of climate change, but are genuinely attempting more ambitious emissions reductions than we are (i.e India, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea). They are acting irrespective of the fact that they carry no historical responsibility for the climate problem, while we completely ignore our massive contribution to and capacity to stop global warming and the suffering it will cause. So sorry Germanwatch, we're not at the bottom of the developed world. We're at the bottom of the whole world. RHIYA TRIVEDI, MEMBER OF THE CANADIAN YOUTH DELEGATION TO COPENHAGEN